This document provides an overview of postmodernism in architecture. It discusses how postmodernism both continued and transcended modernism by accepting modernization while also drawing from pre-modern styles. Key architects and works are mentioned, including Robert Venturi's Vanna Venturi House, which questioned notions of what a house is; Charles Moore's Piazza d'Italia, which incorporated historical styles; Michael Graves' Portland Building, featuring ornamentation; and Philip Johnson's AT&T Building, representing a shift away from the purely functional. Postmodernism is defined as being pluralistic and communicating to both experts and the public, in contrast to the elitism of some modernist works.

1. POSTMODERNISM
Part I
LECTURE 9
Image Source: http://www.statelykitsch.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/MH-sketch.jpg [Online]
History of Architecture-II (AP-313)
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism
Nipesh P Narayanan

2. WHAT IS MODERNISM
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

3. WHAT IS MODERNISM
• Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution
• Search for the Absolute truth
– Man’s destiny is in Man’s hand
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

4. Piet Mondrian
Image Source: http://www.pietmondrian.info/mondrian-at-a-glance/immagini-glance/dipinti-grandi-480/flowering-trees1912-mondrian.jpg [Online]
WHAT IS REALLY REAL?
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

5. WHAT IS REALLY REAL?
Image Source: http://www.pietmondrian.info/ [Online]
“ Abstraction alone is not enough to
eliminate the naturalistic from
painting”
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

6. Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MagrittePipe.jpg [Online]
WHAT IS REALLY REAL?
The Treachery of Images, René Magritte, 1928-29
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

7. Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MagrittePipe.jpg [Online]
1928-29
Image Source: http://www.statelykitsch.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/MH-sketch.jpg [Online]
THIS IS NOT A PIPE, BUT THIS IS A HOUSE!
1962-64
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

8. CAN POST-MODERNISM BE DEFINED
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

9. WHAT COULD BE POST-MODERNISM
“Defining our world today as Post-Modern is rather like defining
women as ‘non-men’. It doesn’t tell us very much, either flattering or
predictive. All it says is what we have left – the Modern world, which is
paradoxically doomed, like an obsolete futurist, to extinction. And
there is another linguistic puzzle. How can the world be Post-Modern,
magically preserved like some creature in Alice in Wonderland, beyond
the present tense? Do we inhabit only the past, or future.”
~ Charles Jencks (1987)
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

10. WHAT COULD BE POST-MODERNISM
“*Postmodern+movements show to some degree that double aspect of
the term:
-They are, at once, a continuation of Modernism and its
transcendence.
- they accept the irreversible nature of the modern world and
modernization, but deny this cuts us off from the pre-modern past,
and this past is as much a part of the present as any aspect of the
twentieth century.”
~ Charles Jencks (1987)
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

11. WHAT COULD BE POST-MODERNISM
Transcending
Modernism
Continuing
Modernism
No Elitism
Architecture as Public Art
Intellectual product for
those who understand
Dual Coding
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

12. WHAT COULD BE POST-MODERNISM
“Post-modern Architecture is doubly coded, half-Modern and halfconventional, in its attempt to communicate with both the public and
a concerned minority, usually architects”
~ Charles Jencks (1987)
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

13. WHAT COULD BE POST-MODERNISM
Modern – Latin , MODO ~ “Just Now”
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

14. WHAT COULD BE POST-MODERNISM
“A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern.
Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the
nascent state, and this state is constant”
~ Jean François (1979), ‘The Postmodern Condition’
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

15. POST-MODERNISM Vs LATE MODERNISM
LATE MODERNISM
Modernist Values
• Expression of Technology
•Circulation and Efficiency
PRAGMATIC
POST-MODERNISM
•City Context
•Values of the mass
•Personal means of architectural
expressions such as ornament
PLURALIST
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

16. Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VVenturi_House_Highsmith.jpeg [Online]
WHAT IS A HOUSE?
Vanna Venturi House, Philadelphia , Robert Venturi, 1959-64
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

17. Image Source: http://www.statelykitsch.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/MH-outside2.jpg [Online]
WHAT IS A HOUSE?
Vanna Venturi House, Philadelphia , Robert Venturi, 1959-64
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

18. Image Source: http://www.remixtheschoolhouse.com/sites/default/files/IMG_0004.jpg [Online]
WHAT IS A HOUSE?
Vanna Venturi House, Philadelphia , Robert Venturi, 1959-64
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

19. Image Source: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41EEGFY1QRL._SL500_AA300_.jpg [Online]
"Less is a bore." ,1966
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

20. Image Source: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tPbgtraSqM/TVsHmkNptsI/AAAAAAAADjU/uFpkRbPJQro/s400/learning%2Bfrom%2Blas%2Bvegas%2524%2524%2524%2524%2524%
2524.jpg [Online]
1972
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

21. Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PiazzaDItalia1990.jpg [Online]
CHARLES MOORE – PIAZZA D’ITALIA
New Orleans, 1978
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

22. Image Source: http://www.dustinfike.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/in_hotel_plan_lg.jpg [Online]
CHARLES MOORE – PIAZZA D’ITALIA
New Orleans, 1978
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

23. Image Source: http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/2459/mooreqe8.jpg [Online]
CHARLES MOORE – PIAZZA D’ITALIA
New Orleans, 1978
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

24. Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Portland_Building_1982.jpg [Online]
MICHAEL GRAVES– PORTLAND BUILDING
Portland, 1982
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

25. Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sony_Building_by_David_Shankbone_crop.jpg [Online]
PHILIP JOHNSON– AT&T / SONY BUILDING
NY, 1984
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism

26. REFERENCE
Charles Jencks. 1977. The Language of Post-Modern Architecture. Academy
Editions. ISBN 0856709336
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Postmodernism